Silicon devices and methods for fabricating them are ubiquitous in modern society. This ubiquity arises because crystalline silicon is cheap, abundant, and present in a myriad of optoelectronic devices that include microprocessor chips. Because of the wide use, many efficient methods have been developed for engineering silicon into various shapes and sizes. Therefore, if both silicon and a second substance can alternatively be used to fulfil some function, it is often more advantageous to use silicon because of familiarity of use, and manufacture.
While crystalline silicon has many useful properties that make the element eminently suitable for semiconductor applications, there are desirable properties that crystalline silicon does not possess. For example, crystalline silicon has a band gap of 1.07 eV, and hence only absorbs light that is no less energetic than visible light, which limits its use in certain optoelectronic devices. In addition, the current emitting and luminescent properties of crystalline silicon also limit the use of this element in certain optoelectronic devices. Any technique that would improve the 5 light absorption, current emission, or luminescent properties of silicon would be very welcome.